Today, Senator Kim delivered remarks on the Senate Floor to condemn the Trump administration for ordering military operations in Venezuela based on their hubris, and without any strategy or plan for what follows.

“This Administration does not have a sound foreign policy – it has one that is rooted in bluster, built on extortion and extraction for the President’s own benefit, and without the best interests of the American people at heart...It’s for them that we must be a strong check on this reckless and feckless foreign policy.”

Watch Senator Kim’s Full Remarks

In his remarks, Senator Kim outlined the damaging consequences of this path on our relationships with allies and our strength on the global stage:

“This approach of spheres of influence and “might makes right” is one that our leading competitors and adversaries – China and Russia – have been asserting themselves. President Trump’s adoption of this approach endorses and advances their worldview – a move that could have dangerous global consequences.”

Furthermore, he dove into the immediate and damaging implications of further military engagement for the safety of our servicemembers and the cost to American families:

“There is the cost for our servicemembers – more than 15,000 at last reports currently positioned in the Caribbean and focused on operations in and around Venezuela. Their lives are on the line. They’ve been taken away from their families. And there’s the cost to the American people. Millions of Americans are about to see their healthcare costs rise exponentially – why are we conducting military operations in a country that has no direct security threat to the United States when people are about to lose their healthcare?”

Additional key quotes from Senator Kim’s remarks as prepared:

“I have worked on Iraq and Afghanistan, where our country has seen the risks of getting pulled into open-ended commitments trying to run other countries. And I’ve seen the importance of always having a plan for the day after – something this administration clearly did not do. So what the American people are seeing from this administration is hubris, but without strategy – a dangerous combination.”

“That just because a military operation was skillfully executed by our brave military personnel without Americans killed, there are no costs...That a world where ‘might makes right’ benefits American interests...He is simply wrong.”

“The idea that protecting our immediate surroundings will keep the American people safe is a dated, 19^th century idea that long ago became irrelevant...By staking claim to anything and everything within our so-called ‘sphere’, we risk alienating ourselves from allies and partners, which is arguably our greatest strength.”

“The United States should be countering this vision of a world based on spheres of influence with our own alternative of a stronger global order – not participating in the destruction of the existing one by endorsing Moscow and Beijing’s alternative.”

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